


A Work in Progress

by ThatPeskyBoat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Awkward Encounters, F/M, Implied Relationships, Implied black/red/pale vacillation, Just after the events of the Vrisky Business comic, accidentally stubbing major limbs and sensory organs, after the attachment of Vriska's arm, dried blood mentions, literally everything you would expect after vriska gets blown up so, lusus envy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-27 07:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16697686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatPeskyBoat/pseuds/ThatPeskyBoat
Summary: Vriska awakens in a darkened room, without her glasses and with a hazy memory. It's only when she remembers that she accidentally had a mental breakdown in front of her neighbour some indeterminate amount of time ago does she decide that this isn't the greatest place to be.





	A Work in Progress

**Author's Note:**

> A writing commission for scoundrel.tumblr.com since she is the patron saint of rarepairs. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> This is actually the first time I've written Equius so hopefully it's not entirely terrible.

There’s always that little bit of disorientation one feels when they just wake up from a nap that they didn’t plan on having. For Vriska, this disorientation was magnified by about eight thousand, especially since there was an ache deep inside of her skull and a harsh throbbing where there was an entirely uncomfortable coolness pressed against the stump where a perfectly functioning arm once resided. She didn’t even really want to open her eyes at the moment. One of them felt like it was gummed shut anyway, and just behind it was that deep-seated ache. Why was she feeling so shitty anyway? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it just yet.

It took a deep breath before she actually had the strength to open her eyes - no, wait, her _eye_ . The other eyelid refused to even twitch, and it stung her to recall that that set of eyelids might not actually exist anymore. It’s impossible to make out the ceiling above her with her single seeing eye, mainly due to the fact that her glasses were also missing. They didn’t get destroyed when Pyrope made that ball blow up in her face. They can’t have. However, their current whereabouts were going to remain a mystery for the now. The ceiling of this block was too high in her humble opinion. She really shouldn’t have to struggle this hard to see it. _Later_ , she thought, _I’ll complain about that to whoever’s around._

The thought idly drifted away from her as she remembered that her arm also got blown off, and she managed to lift her right hand up to trace along the seam of her stump - the one that was now fused to cold metal. Confusion rung in her mind for a few moments as a train of thought finished running through her mind - could she feed her lost arm to her lusus to shut her up? - for maybe eight seconds before it struck her. There was now something in the place of her arm. Something she had, albeit very little, control over. Which means that she had gone to Equius. And now she could finally remember what happened just before she passed out. The mental breakdown. The screaming about her manipulative bitch of a lusus. The fact that she didn’t actually care for Vriska. The fact that she was always nagging Vriska to get her more food because she was _always so fucking hungry_.

Vriska groaned aloud despite knowing that no one would hear her. She didn’t _want_ anyone to hear her, so really this was the perfect situation for her right now. Alone, in a weird block of a hive that she didn’t quite recognise but suspected belonged to Equius. What she guessed to be the only blood left in her body rushed to her head as she quickly stood up. The oncoming wave of dizziness nearly made her fall back to the couch or, knowing her current streak of bad luck, the floor. By some miracle she managed to keep her balance. However, the next task was to get to the door, and for some fucking reason the room was tilting off to the side. Gravity really needed to get its shit in order.

Vriska grunted as she stumbled into a desk off to the side, her hip slamming into it and metal hand slipping over the surface. This was going to take some getting used to, she realised. Her eye went out of focus for a moment as she tried to catch her breath and attempted to will the pain shooting through her hip away. She realised, when her eye finally focused properly again, that her jacket sleeve was stiff with dried blood that was too light in hue to possibly belong to Equius. Ugh, why couldn’t that shit stay _inside_ of her? Right, because she just _had_ to go and “stub” her arm and eye. It took her a moment longer to realise that the rest of her clothes were just as bloodcaked, and that her hair was also stiff with it. She decided right then and there that the ablutionblock would be her first destination when she got back to her hive.

Things were coming into slightly sharper focus as she dragged herself to the door almost agonisingly slowly. Unfortunately for her, without her glasses, the whole world was to remain as vague shapes. At least it wasn’t spinning as much now. Finally, after using surface after surface as crutches, she just about reached the door. That was when her worst nightmare was realised. The door swung open and there, in the doorframe, stood the imposing figure of her next door neighbour. As much as he was probably her best friend on the whole planet right at this moment, he was also the last person that she wanted to see out of her one unfucked eye.

A tense and awkward second passed. Then another. Vriska was a prancebeast in the headlights, and Equius was a scuttlebuggy about to slam into her. How did he know that she was up? Did this creep have cameras in every single block in his hive? Was he just omniscient enough to know when to come and make a bad night worse? She didn’t know, but the awkward silence between them was dragging on. At least, until he cleared his throat and held out something in his huge, sweaty hand. She couldn’t read his expression with those damn shades on his stupid stoic face. Vriska looks down, taking a moment to let her eye focus on what he was holding out to her.

Her glasses lay in his hand, the smashed lens replaced with a blacked out one and the other cleaned of her blood.

“I thought you may require these.”  
  
Vriska took the glasses off of him silently, putting them on awkwardly with her right hand.

Another awkward silence.

“The ceiling of this block is too fucking high.”

Equius tilted his head slightly as he looked down on her, his expression unchanging.

“You, of all people, have an issue with the interior structure of my hive?”

Vriska hated that she couldn’t conjure up a witty response to that. How did he even know what the inside of her hive looked like? It wasn’t _that_ bad anyway! With a huff, she clumsily crossed her arms and hoped that that would make her point just as well as a sick burn back would’ve.

“You shouldn’t have risen yet. In order to maintain the integrity of the very delicate work I needed to do in order to fuse an arm that wasn’t manufactured as a prosthetic to your stump, you need to rest. Too much jostling could cause nerve damage and thus more work for me.”  


If Vriska still had her other eye, she would’ve rolled all eight of her pupils at him. Since she only had the one, however, she would just have to make do with rolling one. It was an incredibly powerful eye roll though, which made her point just as well as it would’ve before.

“I’m _fine_ , Equius. One hundred percent perfect! More than that actually, more like _eight hundred_ percent perfect! You like percentages, right? You totally do. Anyway, look at me, all standing and shit! Back to how I was before, minus the depth perception but I’ll make it work! I always do,” Vriska’s spiel trailed off a little as she looked up at him, finally able to see his features clearly despite the sweat smudges on her glasses. His expressionless features made her even more irritated than before. _Oh my fucking god do you even know what an expression is Zahhak? Raise an eyebrow! Sigh! Something!_ She cursed internally at him.

“You did some _great_ work on me, buddy, so I’ll give you a pass here. Seriously, I feel right as rain! This arm might not have been made for me specifically, but it damn sure feels like was.” She swung her arms out, sending a bolt of pain up through her stump and right through her thinkpan. Vriska flinched, and she caught a glimpse of Equius’ features softening a touch. No, that wasn’t supposed to happen. He really needed to stop pitying her and just let her leave before this got more awkward!

“Evidently, you are not in a stable enough condition to leave my hive as of right now, Vriska.” There was a finality in his tone that she despised. “I’ll instruct Aurthour to extract some clothing from your hive that isn’t absolutely ruined. He’ll also be available should you require his assistance if you desire to bathe.” Vriska cringed at the mention of Aurthour, recalling her jealous rage at the fact that he served Equius rather than the other way around. It just wasn’t fair. Equius must have been thinking about it too, or else noticed her cringing, because he continued,

“I believe that the healing process is going to take longer than you would like. By my calculations from the volume of blood that Aurthour had to clean from my workshop floor, the amount you lost is too extreme for you to have recovered from it already. You will stay in this guest room of mine until I determine that you are strong enough to return back to your hive.”

Vriska stayed silent, looking down at the ground for half a moment. The irritation had flushed away, replaced by a quiet thankfulness to her neighbour. At least, from here, she couldn’t hear what was sure to be complaining from her lusus. She looked back up to Equius, her shoulders slumping a little as she saw the dumb smile on his face. It was too soft for him. Too dumb. Stupid life-saving next door horseboy neighbour. She smiled back.  


“Fine! But not because you’re telling me to! I’m _choosing_ to stay here. Be grateful for that!”

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this work and would like to commission me, please head over to http://thatpeskyboat.tumblr.com/post/180256135599/writing-commissions and check out the details there.


End file.
